Sound of My Voice

I read the synopsis for this movie and thought it sounded very interesting. My conclusion: Just read the plot line like a miniature novel and you can appreciate the story much more. I didn't much care for the movie in comparison. I felt it could've been done much better.

I agree with the other reviewer calling the ending a cop-out. There was just so much missing with the movie. It also would've been much better with character actors that had more charisma, particularly with Maggie who is supposed to be incredibly charismatic but just comes off incredibly weird (I'm sure it's sort of the point, but couldn't she have been at least a little charming since it calls it?).

Having seen "Another Earth" and "The East" in which Brit Marling is both the star and a co-author (plus "Arbitrage" where she just has a support part), I wanted to see "Sound Of My Voice" which she co-wrote at the same time as "Another Earth" and again provides her with a leading role. As with "The East", the other co-writer and director is her friend Zal Batmanglij and, as with "Another Earth" and "THe East". she was also a co-producer. Clearly Marling is a bright and ambitious actress who is not going to wait for good roles to be offered to her, but determined to craft them herself.

"Sound Of My Voice" was always going to have a limited appeal, since it is so incredibly low budget and markedly slow, but I found it original and mesmerising as it tells the story of Maggie who is either a visitor from the future with some important insights and messages or a complete fraud who is creating a dangerous cult. Out to expose her are Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius) who want to make a revelatory documentary but find that Maggie is harder to read and to expose than they imagined. It is a pleasure to find a plot that is different and thought-provoking and Marling is definitely a woman to watch.

I saw this at the 2012 Palm Springs International Film Festival. An LA journalist and his girlfriend Peter (Christopher Denham) as Peter and Nicole Vicius as Lorna go underground to investigate a cult led by a woman who claims she's from the future. Brit Marling stars as Maggie, the mysterious cult leader with Richard Wharton as Klaus, her dedicated right hand man who brings the members and potential members of the the small group of followers to Maggie's home where she conducts meetings in her basement. Zal Batmanglij directs and co-wrote the script with Marling. Nice music from Rostam Batmanglij with a good-looking production value thanks to cinematographer Rachel Morrison and production designer Scott Enge. This was originally conceived as a 10 part webisode which is why the annoying and unexplainable numbers from one to ten keep popping up every few minutes. Fox Searchlight bought this and turned it into a theatrical release where it debuted as a big hit at the Sundance Film Festival last year. This comes across as more like a TV pilot for some Sci-Fi channel series than a movie. Even if a sequel to it were made as a film, it would spend the entire film just trying to explain and fill in the many unanswered story line subplots and backgrounds. Just too many loose ends here to a semi-interesting story that takes you nowhere. Would probably make a good TV series but this as a film fall flat. I would give this a 6.0 out of 10.

For starters - I'd say that there were definitely 2 major shortcomings in Sound Of My Voice (SOMV, for sort) that prevented me from giving it more than a 5-star rating.

(1) On a scale of 1-5, Maggie (though very attractive) only scored a disappointing 2, in my books, when it came to the overall magnetism of her charisma. This ripe, young woman clearly lacked the essential character dynamics to convince me (like she was trying to convince her faithful followers in the story) that she actually came even close to coming from the year 2054.

(2) Regardless of SOMV having only a nothing-budget of just $135,000, this didn't, in any way, excuse the sometimes painfully dry quality of its storytelling.

But, of course, with that said - I am not at all disappointed that I stuck with this bizarre, little film to the very end. 'Cause (in spite of its flaws and its questions left unanswered) at the point when Peter finally met privately with Maggie, that's when the intriguing twist in the story began to take on some real shape and turn into something worth paying attention to.

I saw Sound of My Voice at its SXSW following its premiere at Sundance. It is a weird little film about a two documentary filmmakers investigating Maggie - a cult leader who claims to have traveled back from the future. It was made on a shoestring budget which can be seen in some of its sound and editing. While the film is a decent first effort by some talented amateur filmmakers, it feels oddly unfinished. The acting is okay, but nothing spectacular. The script is a classic presentation of the one of the oldest of cinematic and literary conflicts between faith and reason. Do you believe that Maggie is a time traveler or is she a fraud? The journey is perhaps more interesting than where it ultimately ends up. The trip to that end is worthwhile and really quite creepy and disturbing at times. Maggie is a perplexing enigma and the cult's beliefs and rituals are quite mind-boggling.

The cult members seem quite willing to believe anything in the existential quest to give their lives some meaning. They seem to want to be led somewhere and Maggie is very willing to take them. In that sense one can ask what the real difference is between a cult and an established religion. Many scholars would say not that much other than how long they've been around. The final twist is ultimately not all that shocking or truly expected. Still, a good first effort that may allow the filmmakers to move on to bigger and better stuff.